Free Evolution's Captain by Peter Nichols Page B

and new belongings and amazing stories to tell their descendants. Others found themselves in smoky, overpopulated, industrial cities, exhibited as curiosities at fairgrounds and in theaters, examples of the freakish lower echelons of creation, destined to die of neglect, despair, and loneliness.
    These living trophies satisfied the missionary zeal of the age that was the higher-minded rationale behind the scramble for colonial possession. Men like FitzRoy, and David Livingstone in Africa, believed they were bringing improvement and light to disenfranchised peoples while paving the way for the British to take over their lands and material wealth.
    Â 
    Whatever his motives, FitzRoy’s collection of natives from the territory of his survey was not part of his job description. It was an action far beyond the strict orders plainly outlined by the Admiralty, whose responsibility for the Fuegians he had now incurred, to dubious purpose.
    As the Beagle approached England in September 1830, FitzRoy wrote a letter to his superior officer, Captain Phillip Parker King, of the Adventure , telling him what he had done:
    Beagle, at sea, 12 September 1830
    Sir,
    I have the honour of reporting to you that there are now on board of His Majesty’s Sloop, under my command, four natives of Tierra del Fuego.
    Their names and estimated ages are:
    York Minster…26
    Boat Memory…20
    James Button…14
    Fuegia Basket (a girl)…9
    I have maintained them entirely at my own expense, and hold myself responsible for their comfort while away from, and for their safe return to their own country: and I have now to request that, as senior officer of the expedition, you will consider the possibility of some public advantage being derived from this circumstance; and of the propriety of offering them, with that view, to His Majesty’s Government.
    FitzRoy then gave a brief account of the Beagle ’s stolen whaleboat and his attempt to secure hostages and interpreters for its return, and his eventual decision to keep the captives aboard.
    I thought that many good effects might be the consequence of their living a short time in England. They have lived, and have been clothed like the seamen, and are now, and have been always, in excellent health and very happy. They understand why they were taken, and look forward with pleasure to seeing our country, as well as returning to their own.
    Should not His Majesty’s government direct otherwise, I shall procure for these people a suitable education, and, after two or three years, shall send or take them back to their country, with as large a stock as I can collect of those articles most useful to them, and most likely to improve the condition of their countrymen, who are now scarcely superior to the brute creation.
    Robt. FitzRoy
    The passage from Tierra del Fuego was a long one, four and a half months, with stops in Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro. The Fuegians grew slowly more communicative with the crew, as they picked up a basic and sailorly English, and FitzRoy attempted to make translations of some of their words, a process complicated by the fact that Jemmy Button spoke a different dialect from the other three captives.
    The Fuegians made rare tourists aboard their British Navy cruise ship. Montevideo, their first city, would have been a fantastic sight to them. The harbor was filled with ships, a sprawl of buildings and streets tumbled down to the water, large buildings and warehouses lined the docks, and music of all kinds poured out of bars and dance halls and floated across the water to the anchored ship. Here they all went ashore. FitzRoy took them to the local hospital to be vaccinated against smallpox; Fuegia Basket stayed with an English family for a few days, and the three menaccompanied the captain (and probably several of the Beagle ’s marines) on some of his business through the city.
    The Fuegians seemed far less astonished and amazed than FitzRoy expected. Animals